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To Walk and to Be Walked… at the End of the World

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Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre

Part of the book series: GeoJournal Library ((GEJL,volume 117))

Abstract

This chapter describes the research project ‘Heritagization Processes along the Camino de Santiago: Santiago-Finisterre-Muxía Route’. This project addresses two issues: firstly, the consequences of pilgrimage on the daily lives of those living in the towns and villages through which the route passes, and secondly, the heritage construction processes (heritagization) taking place along the Camino. Research involved the gathering of survey data in order to analyze the socioeconomic impact of the pilgrimage on businesses along the route, together with ethnographic studies carried out in three places on the Camino: Vilaserío (municipal district of Negreira), Olveiroa (municipal district of Dumbría) and Finisterre (municipal district of Finisterre). This chapter also offers an overview of the key concepts used throughout the rest of the chapters, such as ‘heritagization’ (or heritage construction processes), a concept used to analyze two underlying forces of heritage policies: economic development and identity politics.

To be a pilgrim consists of letting the Camino go through you…

you are walked by the Camino

(pilgrim, fieldnotes 7-2-2011)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The answers were not mutually exclusive. One person could visualize various things at once, for instance, a pilgrim in a rural landscape.

  2. 2.

    This route can be walked West–East towards Santiago, which is officially recognized by the Catholic Church. See Margry (Chap. 2) for an explanation on both directions.

  3. 3.

    www.neria.es/quienes-somos.aspx, accessed July 23, 2014.

  4. 4.

    http://www.turismocostadamorte.com/ga/upload/des/59aGuia%20Xeral%20Costa%20Morte%20GAL.pdf, accessed 23 July, 2014.

  5. 5.

    A Xacobeo, jacobeo or holly year is a jubilee year that occurs when July 25th, the day of St. James, falls on a Sunday. For more information on this topic, see Vilar, this volume.

  6. 6.

    This expression was recorded during ethnographic fieldwork among owners of small restaurants and hostels, as well as among pilgrims. However Margry, in his surveys and fieldwork, did not encounter it (Margry, Chap. 8).

  7. 7.

    Municipal video produced by Fisterra TV: http://www.concellofisterra.com/ga/web/info.php?idc=37 accessed March 17, 2012.

  8. 8.

    See Margry’s comments on Starkie’s writing (Margry, Chap. 2).

  9. 9.

    The conflicts between the various actors involved in the camino are explored in Chap. 4.

  10. 10.

    http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/television/2013/10/18/camino-santiago-plato-reality-emitiran-corea/0003_201310G18P62991.htm (Accessed 17 July 2014).

  11. 11.

    The bibliography of pilgrimage is too broad to be covered in this introduction. With the purpose of giving some general recommendations for studies on what it means to be a pilgrim, see the pioneer book by Turner and Turner (1978), Coleman and Eade (2004), Reader and Walter (1993), Morinis (1992) and Margry (2008a). For an analysis on pilgrimage routes as cultural heritage see Roseman (2004), Margry (2008b), and Roseman et al. (2008); for studies on pilgrimage and tourism see Cohen (1992), and Badone and Roseman (2004).

  12. 12.

    This section draws from an earlier version presented at the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Göteburg 2012.

  13. 13.

    In Spain, see for instance García (2007), Pereiro (1999), and Prats (2005); and in France, Faure (1998), Amougou (2004), Davallon (2006), and Drouin (2006).

  14. 14.

    Bendix (2009), Flesler and Pérez Melgosa (2010), Margry and Sánchez-Carretero (2011), Margry (2011a, b) all offer examples of the use of ‘heritagization’ in English.

  15. 15.

    http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/authors-instructions.html, accessed October 2, 2012.

  16. 16.

    http://respatrimoni.wordpress.com, accessed October 2, 2012.

  17. 17.

    For more information on place branding strategies see Jiménez-Esquinas and Sánchez-Carretero (forthcoming).

  18. 18.

    We maintain anonymity of our collaborators, except in those cases in which they explicitly requested the opposite.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Cristina Sánchez-Carretero

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  1. Cristina Sánchez-Carretero
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Correspondence to Cristina Sánchez-Carretero .

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  1. Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit) Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Cristina Sánchez-Carretero

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Sánchez-Carretero, C. (2015). To Walk and to Be Walked… at the End of the World. In: Sánchez-Carretero, C. (eds) Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre. GeoJournal Library, vol 117. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20212-9_1

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